WiX Jobs

I've been working my way through the book The Second Coming of Steve Jobs that Peter Torr left behind when he moved out (when I got married). The book is a bit sensationalistic so I'm constantly questioning how much of it is really real but there are parts that I find amusing. This particular passage sticks out in my mind that talks about Steve Jobs's amazing ability to sell:

Steve was charming and hypnotic.

"Bill, between us, we own one hundred percent of the desktop," Steve said, meaning that Microsoft and Apple together controlled the market for PC operating-system software.

Bill shook his head in amazement. Steve's tone made it sound as though Bill had 50 percent and Steve and 50 percent. The reality was that Bill had 97 percent and Steve had only 3 percent.

Percentages aside Microsoft and Apple are the major players in the desktop market. Duh, right? Yeah, so what if you are a setup developer and wanted to work at either of those companies? Well, it turns out they both have job openings, if you are experienced with the WiX toolset:

Join the team responsible for building and releasing all Apple software products. We are a fast paced and fun group that is at the core of the Apple software development process.

The Installer Support Engineering team works with development engineering teams across all of Apple. We design and maintain installer packaging and associated tools and automation that allow Apple to successfully distribute our OS releases, applications, and hardware projects.

We are looking for an energetic problem solver with engineering experience/education, excellent verbal and written communication skills, and a strong work ethic. Candidate must possess the programming expertise to tackle a variety of technical problems, and the communication skills to work effectively with technical and non-technical colleagues. Development experience on Windows is required, and Macintosh or other UNIX platforms experience is a huge plus.

Additional Success Factors: * Experience with Apple frameworks, such as AppKit and CoreFoundation * Experience with Perl, JavaScript, Python, Objective-C and shell / UNIX scripting * Familiarity with build systems and version control systems such as CVS and Subversion * Familiarity with current installation technology, such as the OS X Installer, InstallShield, and RPM

Do you like to create order out of Chaos? Does the idea of simplifying the work of keeping millions of desktops secure on the web sound like a worthy challenge? Would you like to make thousands of system administrators more productive while making their lives easier? If you're up to it, we have a challenge for you: simplify and streamline the IT Pro's and user's experience administering Internet Explorer on the desktop. Make it easy for administrators to keep users secure while allowing users easy access to the features they need.

The Internet Explorer team is looking for a strong developer to work on our Foundations Deployment team. The Deployment team is responsible for making it easy for both home and enterprise users to adopt, install, configure, trust and use Internet Explorer as their browser of choice. Your work will touch millions of lives daily, so quality is critically important. The ability to ship the right solution, on time, into a myriad of end-user scenarios is hard. It requires someone with a passion for quality, the ability to manage a complex array of inter-related dependencies, and most of all, someone who thrives on challenge. However, at the end of the day, you'll have the rewards of a job well done, and the satisfaction of knowing that millions of users will be positively touched by your work on a daily basis. You'll have demonstrated the ability to deliver a positive difference in the productivity of large, influential customer segments, which care passionately about your product.

We need a technically strong developer with a self-motivated spirit, a passion for the user, and excellent problem solving skills. The successful candidate will have 2+ years experience writing Win32 applications using C/C++. The ideal candidate will also be experienced with XML & XSL technologies, Perl and/or similar scripting languages, Microsoft Installer, Wix, Active Directory, the IE Administration Kit, and Group Policy on Windows Server. Experience with C# and the .NET Class Library is a plus. A BS degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience is required.

But this blog entry really isn't meant to be about job opportunities available at Apple and Microsoft (although best of luck to you if you're applying for either of them).

Rather, when Bob found the link to the Apple job and sent it to a bunch of us I was pleasantly surprised so I went searching on the Microsoft careers site. Then I remembered a comment someone made when the WiX toolset was first released. The comment went something like, "The WiX toolset won't be relevant until there are actually job postings that require it." Well, okay then. I guess we're done with that. <smile/>

FireGiant provides dedicated support for the WiX toolset. Ever wish you could get your WiX questions answered immediately with the technical detail that you find in the blog posts here? You can with FireGiant!